A Brevard County teacher has been placed on administrative leave for a second time following the release of body camera footage.
In a one-on-one interview Tuesday, WESH 2 spoke with Brevard County School Board Vice Chair Matt Susin about the district's decision.
“It’s the most deplorable behavior that you can ask from any of our staff members—absolutely not what we expect at BPS,” Susin said.
The video in question is from a police officer's body camera after responding to a Cocoa Beach house party in January . He responded twice that night. The second time was to help a 17-year-old who was shaking and vomiting on a front lawn.
“Not only the fact that she openly admitted to being inside the party, on video, but she also impeded the help of one of our 17-year-old children. That is deplorable. Absolutely,” Susin said.
Karly Anderson was arrested and initially charged with child neglect. The State Attorney's Office dropped the felony charge on April 1 and instead charged her with disorderly conduct and disorderly intoxication.
“We, as a school, followed procedures from the Florida statutes and everything else and decided it was a good idea to allow her to come back for employment. Upon—that literally was the first day that she was back. The same exact day, we end up having the body cam footage that comes out, which shows those actions,” Susin said. “We now put her on administrative leave and are moving to an investigation to find out if she was actually at the party.”
Anderson was allowed back to the classroom Monday to teach at Saturn Elementary. A small group of parents stood outside protesting her arrival. Brian Gilbert's daughter goes to the school, and Anderson was assigned to be her teacher this week.
“Not knowing about it, and she’s already—this is her third teacher this year, so it’s already problematic as it is, and then this happens,” Gilbert said. “I understand that the felony charges were dropped, but you didn’t have all the information.”
The school district said it did not have the body camera footage of the arrest until Monday.
“It was not allowed to be released by the Cocoa Beach Police Department, and it wasn’t until it made it to the State’s Attorney’s Office that we actually saw it,” Susin said. “I applaud that they released it so that we could take immediate action, but we did not actually know until yesterday afternoon.”
Gilbert said Anderson has the right to a fair trial, but he wishes the district had waited to reinstate her.
“I hope that the county can really look at their policies and procedures, learn from this, and maybe not pull the trigger so early on getting someone back in the classroom,” Gilbert said.
The district said it plans to conduct a full investigation into Anderson's involvement in the incident.
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